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Google's Android 4, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), debuts later this month on the much-anticipated Galaxy Nexus smartphone. This major new version of Android includes a redesigned user interface that promises a uniform experience across tablet and smartphone form factors, and it delivers new features and a wide range of improvements across the core application stack.

We already gave you a look at the Galaxy Nexus earlier this month in a hands-on review of the hardware. Now it's time to take a close look at the operating system and the ICS user experience.

British Telecommunications has filed a civil suit in a Delaware court alleging that some Google products and services including Android, and its search, music, map, and location-based advertising infringe on one or more of six of its patents.

The British company entered a prayer on Thursday before the United States District Court for the District of Delaware for an injunction against Google, as well as unspecified damages, which could be tripled if proven that Google's alleged infringement of the patents was willful and deliberate. BT has also asked for a trial by jury.

A security testing firm today said a recent report that named Google's Chrome as the most secured browser was flawed -- and part of a campaign by Google to undermine Mozilla's Firefox. Google denied the charges.

The work done by Denver-based security consultancy Accuvant, which released a report last week naming Chrome as more secured than either Firefox or Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), was paid for by Google. That raised the hackles of NSS Labs, a California company that tests browser security and antivirus software.

Oracle has suffered a setback in its lawsuit accusing Google of patent infringement and copyright violation in its Android operating system: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected one of Oracle's Java-related patents -- although it did uphold another.

The PTO's latest determinations, reported in a joint court filing Wednesday, are a mixed bag for both sides. However, at least one legal expert has said the Oracle patent that was rejected could be its most significant in the case.

A hacker named Steven has posted a video of Ice Cream Sandwich running on the Kindle Fire, along with more information in the XDA Developers forums. The hack is incomplete, lacking support for audio, Wi-Fi, the accelerometer and the light sensor. Also, transitions look a bit choppy, but it's a start.

The hacker plans to start an open source project for Ice Cream Sandwich on the Kindle Fire, and will post his code to it. This was only a matter of time, considering the Android 4.0 code is open source.

Some Android anti-virus firms have begun releasing Carrier IQ detection apps, but only after the controversial software became a talking point on Capitol Hill ... and a month after a security researcher first discovered it.

The ease and ability of Android licensees to modify the software they install on their smartphones has opened vast security holes that enable rogue apps to record calls, monitor users' locations and access sensitive data without permission, researchers say, noting that while Google and Motorola acknowledge the issues, HTC and Samsung have ignored their findings.

Surveillance companies can use your iPhone to take photos of you and your surroundings without your knowledge, said a representative from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism at a panel chaired by Julian Assange™ today.

Companies also sell products that will let them change the messages you write, track your location and nick your email contacts, claimed speakers on the panel that included representatives from Privacy International and the aforementioned bureau.

Here's a piece of news that will worry anyone interested in security (which should be pretty much everyone who reads Network World): A programmer by the name of Juuso Salonen has created a Ruby script called BozoCrack that cracks MD5 hashed passwords with remarkable success and with very little effort.

Before we go any further, let's have a little background: Computer systems need a mechanism to authenticate users and processes so that the good guys can get in to do work and the bad guys are locked out.

If 1 in 50 people on the Web move from Firefox to Chrome, Google's browser will unseat Mozilla's for the No. 2 spot in worldwide usage. That's because, according to Net Applications' November browser usage measurements, Chrome is now within 4 percentage points of Firefox. With a 2 percentage-point increase in one and a 2-percentage decrease in the other, Google comes out on top.